Visual ciphers of home (Heimat) in the visual arts, literature and film

Images have a particularly vivid influence on popular ideas of what is commonly understood as 'home(s)', what seems to belong to it/them and what does not. It is therefore important to understand the different visual ciphers used to convey home/Heimat, i.e. to know where these images come from, how they work and how they change in the course of modernity. The cipher is thus understood as a stylistic device that communicates specific content and can be identified in intermedial constellations in the area of conflict between topoi-like continuity and social and media change. Based on imaginative and ideologically charged works of art and media products, home/Heimat is thus understood in many ways as a dynamic model of visual imagination. The focus is on model-like representations of landscapes, lifestyles and socio-cultural practices that can oscillate and vary between different media and periods, regions and nations.

The sub-project, which is divided into three further sub-projects, addresses these questions on the basis of ciphers of home/Heimat from the late 19th to the 21st century in various media. It examines the visual modelling of (non-)belonging from a media cultural studies perspective. The study focuses on the German-speaking area and, for comparison, France (with a focus on Provence). The research material includes the German art magazine Der Kunstwart (1887–1937), the film genre of Heimatfilm (1950s to 2000s) and film adaptations of French narrative literature that deal with Provence ciphers (from around 1830 onwards). The sub-project will examine how specific or universal visual symbols of home(s) prove to be a model of desired belonging and (experienced) loss in the process of modernity.